It is relatively common in small rural areas for the roads to be made of gravel. It is also common for a drainage ditch to run along side the road. Culverts are typically spaced along the ditch to channel drainage out of the ditch to prevent the ditch from overflowing and possibly washing the road away. Over time, it is common for the culverts to become clogged at the opening with debris. It is also common that the culverts with get bent inward reducing the opening over time thereby increasing the clogging problem.
Unclogging culverts to prevent overflow and washing the road away is a time consuming and labor intensive job. Road crews will sometimes make special trips for culvert maintenance where the opening of the culverts are bent back to their original shape and unclogged. The road crews unclog the culverts manually. Also, many times bent culverts are simply replaced, which requires digging up the road to remove and replace them.
Various means have been designed to alleviate some of the above-described problems but such means still suffer from certain disadvantages and shortcomings. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,000,152 discloses one attempt to achieve cleaning a culvert by providing a culvert cleaning apparatus of use with earth moving machinery having a bucket, which comprises a pivotal attachment assembly extending across a bucket and attached to the opposing side panels and a scoop for digging and removing material from a culvert. A limitation of this device, however, is that in order to position a scoop to be inserted in the opening of the culvert, it is necessary to use a hydraulically controlled bucket of the earth moving machinery that is lowering below the level of the roadway and into the culvert opening and to stop the road work during the culvert cleaning. Also, this device cannot operate independently from the routine road maintenance because the device shares both the bucket and the power for of the earth moving machinery. This device is also not particularly adapted to repair culvert that are bent inward.
Reference also U.S. Pat. No. 6,499,173 which discloses a culvert cleaning apparatus comprised of a culvert cleaning tool, operated by a motor, engaged to the longitudinal beam which is secured on the ground. Shortcomings of this construction include the fact that the apparatus must be secured on the ground during cleaning the culvert. The device is also large and cumbersome and would require an extensive set up time for each culvert to be opened.
For these and other reasons, the present invention is directed to overcoming one of more of the problems set forth above. In this respect, it is desirable to provide a culvert opening and clearing apparatus which is designed to be operably mounted to an implement of heavy machinery such as a grader.
It is further desirable to provide a culvert opening and clearing apparatus which is designed to be operated independently from the road maintenance.
It is further desirable to provide a culvert opening and clearing apparatus which is designed to utilize the auxiliary hydraulic connection provided by the implement of heavy machinery.
It is also desirable to provide a culvert opening and clearing apparatus which eliminates the labor intensive job and reduces the time to unclog the culvert, which allows the road crews to make unclogging the culverts part of their routine road maintenance.
It is further desirable to provide a culvert opening and clearing apparatus which allows the road crews to reduce the possibility of getting injured.